One year ago today: January 10, 2015, fingernail polish, Paris, & Spot . . .
Five years ago today: January 10, 2011, one bolt, three extensions.
Nine years ago today: January 10, 2007, newest miracle cure . . .
Random years ago today: January 10, 2014, used spider, $35,000.
Um, nope, but at least I picked up the book and looked at the cover. That alone makes me overqualified to talk to the loudmouths who insist nothing is wrong. I think it kind of neat the way the anti-Trump people say he is all rhetoric and saying things to fire people up just to get himself elected. Apparently the rest of them are too “politically experienced” to indulge in that kind of thing. Either that, ahem, or this behavior is only acceptable when performed by the party faithful.
How about those attention-whores who go to Trump rallies? Why are they protesting what they don’t like instead of out supporting those they do like. I know, I know! Like the lady in the turban that got removed—Trump is where the publicity is. My objection is not their ideology, but that they are occupying space that a Trump supporter who didn’t get in would appreciate.
The lady got what she wanted—news coverage. She says her purpose was to show Trump what a moderate Muslim was. Yeah, well shouldn’t she be showing ISIS that? Is she willing to lay down her life on it? That a moderate group means no action can be taken against radicals? I doubt it. But I don’t doubt something needs to be done to make it a Muslim problem, not an American one.
I said the Ferdinand Magellan presidential car was extra, but this time I found out why. Remember, I talked to the babe at the counter for several minutes before her sister broke us apart. It seems several years ago some vandals broke into the car and slashed the upholstery. It took so much money to restore the damage that the extra $2 per head had to be enacted.
The day was slow, so JZ and I got the royal tour, including extras like a peek at the secret gun cabinets. I was taken by the galley, a charcoal fired kitchen, even the coffee urn was charcoal. And the ice boxes were huge, since this was before refrigeration. FDR had a special wheelchair designed to fit down the narrow corridors. Oddly, this train car is not luxurious, in fact it is rather utilitarian. There is a studio or sitting room at one end, very plain, with a navy style brass clock and a barometer on one wall. Otherwise the room is bare.
We saw the submarine escape hatch and the 12-ply window panes. Shown here is JZ amazed at the thickness of the glass. I’m not an expert, but oddly, this did not seem to be laminated bullet-proof glass in the ordinary sense. Rather, it seemed to be just heavy layers of ordinary glass. This was further evidenced by cracks in some of the panes that resembled bullet strikes, but were in fact pebbles blown against glass during hurricanes.
Speaking of cool, the trains now, as back when they were in operation, had no air conditioning. There were fans but they must have been ferociously hot to be inside on hot days. Both JZ and I are old enough to have traveled in these style of cars when we were children.
They had benches for two, unlike the “bucket seats” of today’s trains. The day cars were a lot like riding in a school bus. I remember walking with my father through the “lounge car” where it was illegal to gamble. So the porters put a fake cribbage board on the tables so people walking to the dining car were ostensibly fooled. I wasn’t, they was playin’ po-kah, sunny-boy.
The rooms, including the washrooms, had ashtrays and in some cases, cigar holders above the tissue roll. The car, I say, lacked anything like the Pullman super-luxury models of the same period. No, the presidential car didn’t even have curtains, but ordinary blinds. It was painted dull government issue green. The tour guide let us look inside the cabinets, where the cups and dishes rested inside individual matching cutouts.
One display was an old oak ice-cream maker. This set off a chain of events, whereby we finally had to drive to the Gables to the Whip & Dip. We got out ice cream but fell for the oldest trick in the book. The sign said a small dish was $2.50. So we ordered two small, JZ had vanilla, I had peanut butter. The clerk reached over to the smallest dishes in sight, held one up for us to see and asked “This size?” Well, yes, we had just asked for a small and that was pretty small.
At the till, we got hit for $4.40 each. It was not small, but medium. The old “this size” trick, but yes, we had seen it and said yes, assuming it was the small. We will never go back there, unless it is to see the utterly beautiful women that swarm around that area. But take lots of money, preferably you should be rich enough to get take-out at Don Shula’s. We actually saw a lady doing that.
“Spoiled rotten,” quips JZ.
Then over to the Barns & Noble, where JZ quickly found a book to pretend he was reading while sitting next to the Chinese lady. Guess who likes Chinese ladies? We stopped at the coffee shop, my insist, since left on his own, JZ will drink instant Folger’s. And the women in that shopping center, it is just not like that out here in the boonies. I’m a leg man, and that was paradise today. Yeah, we were talking women most of the day.
We stopped to view the offerings at the theaters in Sunset Place, but not one movie there was worth the price tag. “Martian” is already gone to video and this “Revenant” to me looks like a remake of Jeremiah Johnson, or whatever that mountain man theme was. We notice another push by the bookstores on e-readers. I’ve got a drawer of them here that nobody wants, complete with the chargers. Sorry, but readers are just too inconvenient and the good material priced a little too high. It would be different if the readers brought “books” back to the reasonable $6 per issue level.
And I don’t know about “Revenant”. I can’t even find the word on-line. The blurbs say the movie is based on a true story, but you know, I predict it will be another Brad Pitt style ho-hummer. You know, where in addition to the movie plot, you get scene after scene injected into the footage to show you what a great actor the guy is. Even if it adds nothing to the movie. Now, DiCaprio excels in that sort of movie, so let’s wait and see. The guy is an okay actor, but he doesn’t seem to have matured into the roles he now gets. Yeah, Brad Pitt all over again.
One item that drew me was a demo of an old telegraph key. The clicking of the hammer is so unlike that beeps that I learned from that I’ve resolved to buy or build a key system. I’ve long learned there is nobody else out there who is interested in just learning Morse, but I’d still like a go. Upon examining the operation of the museum rig, I noticed it ran from current on the line, hence it needed those big glass insulators we associate with old “telegraph poles”.
Closer thought hit me that it would be a better idea to take a weaker signal off the line and power the clicker part locally, that is, at each end of the pair rather than down the wire. That’s when it hit me. Is that not how Arduino says relays are used? Because I have a small tray of those things, plus I have another tray of bumper switches. I’ll explain.
The telegraph key is just a spring loaded contact switch. I have those, which are intended to be physical contact sensors. The relays are nothing more than a tiny current controlling a bigger current, I’ve often railed on Arduino for not specifying this on the device or at least the packaging. So, if those are the two working parts, should I not be able to build the rest of the telegraph parts out of oak? I’ve built small working “robot” parts already, and it would be a novelty to have, say, a brass base and a wooden key. The opposite of what is expected, which is one of my bass-playing specialties.
To be helpful, I’ll answer the first five ideas you come up with.
1) That won’t work because the ground at the far end has to be past the sounder.
2) Forget that, or the operator would have to switch the wiring to send or receive.
3) Nope, that would cause both relays to click at the same time.
4) Wrong premise because the electricity will flow both ways if it can.
5) That setup will dead short if both operators ever click their keys at the same time.
While you are there consider how to build the sounder. Why should it be a separate unit? And what is a “flame-proof” key? That’s easy, and it is your daily trivia. It is a key that has the contacts sealed in a container to prevent the spark from the gap igniting any flammable gas, as you might get around early airplanes.
Some might point out that early telegraph keys had a lever on one side, proposing the operator threw that switch to send or receive. No, that is a “shorting bar”. When the operator finished sending, he closed that so operators further down the wire would have a complete circuit. See, I’m learning.
And now that I ponder the taste test, the catfish in Memphis (2013) was better than at Wagon’s West (2016). It’s not really something I could put my finger on, but restaurant catfish these days seems “fish-farmed”. It is not quite as salty or quite as “catfish” as I remember. Both plates were around the $14 mark, coffee extra. Hey, I’m worth it.
ADDENDUM
You know one movie I’d like to be made. The true story behind the German rocket development and commanding lead they had over the world. Something that slices through the propaganda about “Operation Paperclip” and the rockets being built by slave labor. To hell, who wants to hear that stuffy old rubbish over again? I mean something that focuses on the incredible achievement that it was.
Sadly, almost every documentary I tried to watch on Peenemunde was tainted with anti-Nazi bombast. Nonsense about how von Braun had spent the balance of his life “unrepentant” and supposedly covering up his secret past. What nonsense. Like most scientists, he got his funding where he could. In passing sometimes the video mentions the rocket launching site and showed some minor motor details. Damn over-controlled press, they got to get their opinions into everything, they can’t just stick to reporting facts. They have to inject whether or not it is a Jewish-friendly fact.
Last Laugh
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